LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps. In 2005, Army service member Alleria Stanley and her wife, Ellicia, just had their second child when Alleria was deployed to war and then faced a new struggle.
ALLERIA STANLEY: I was in Afghanistan in a particularly dangerous combat zone. And she started noticing that there was a lump in her breast. She received the breast cancer diagnosis on November 18, 2005. And so I got to come home closing out one battle to start the next. And we did the chemotherapy. We did the radiation. Come May, we got the amazing news. They could find not a single trace of the cancer anywhere. And we never really had a honeymoon, so we planned a trip of a lifetime. But then she tells me she can't feel her left leg. And the doctor shares with us the cancer is back. And I'll never ever forget the doctor looking at us and says, you should go enjoy your trip.
Afterwards, a few days before Christmas, we went out so the kids could go see Santa Claus. And here's this person, absolutely racked with all the horribleness of cancer. But we pack up the oxygen tanks, we pack up the wheelchair and we go off to the local mall. One of the elves looks at my wife and says - you want to talk to Santa? - with a little sparkle in her eye. That conversation must've gone 10, 15 minutes. And to this day, I have no idea what that conversation was. But I have a picture from that day where she's so alive and full of joy and excitement. And so I will tell anyone in the world, Santa Claus is absolutely real.
One day, we were talking and she said, you've got the hard part. All I have to do is die - you have to keep on living. And she did die, New Year's Eve, 2006. She was right. Living is the incredibly difficult part. And I know that I should be angry at what was taken. But I also recognize what was given - her smile, her giving love and just the sheer magic of it all.
(SOUNDBITE OF MICHAEL JOHN MOLLO'S "MIRAI (PIANO SOLO VERSION)")
FADEL: Alleria Stanley remembering her wife, Ellicia, in Washington, D.C. Their story is archived at the Library of Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF MICHAEL JOHN MOLLO'S "MIRAI (PIANO SOLO VERSION)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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